One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

The Films of 2016: The Triangle

[Beware of Spoilers]

To
put the matter bluntly, The Triangle (2016) may just be the Picnic
at Hanging Rock (1975) of found-footage horror movies.

Roger
Ebert famously called that Australian horror film of the disco decade a “tantalizing puzzle” (Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion;
1993, page 498), and I would make the same assessment of this remarkable new
genre film.

But
first, The Triangle commences with the very real and very disappointing
possibility that it’s going to be nothing but a poor man’s version of Ti West’s
The
Sacrament (2013); simply another scary movie about an isolated commune
or cult. Here, there’s a commune called “Ragnarok”
nestled in the mountains and wilds of Montana, and it’s the central location.

But
then -- during the film’s last half hour -- matters take a hard right turn. The
ensuing “twist” proves as original, unexpected, and unconventional as anything
I have encountered in a horror movie since I began blogging twelve years ago.

What
could have easily been a two-dimensional movie about an evil cult instead
graduates to the realm of…something else.

How
should I put this succinctly?

Not
since the aforementioned Picnic at Hanging Rock have I
encountered a film that so thoroughly immerses me in its mystery that I actually
felt like I was witnessing, with my own eyes, a legitimate paranormal or
supernatural event.

That’s
precisely the feeling that The Triangle encourages and provokes,
largely through its cinema-verite approach and expert editing and performances.
Watching the film, you feel you are watching real life unfold before you.

And
after being lulled into the routine and reality of Ragnarok, the intrusion of
the unexpected -- the irrational -- strikes the audience like an electrical
shock.

All
along, audiences will be expecting answers about the cult, an explanation of
the troubles roiling underneath it. What
they get instead is not a story of good and evil systems of government or
community, but rather a reckoning about human existence, and a terrifying
mystery regarding it.

This
is a movie about the order of the universe itself, and the way that man -- consciously,
sub-consciously, or unconsciously -- adheres to that order.

“Why are you guys not worried?”

After
receiving a postcard requesting help from a friend, Nathaniel, documentary
filmmaker Adam Stilwell (himself) and three other filmmakers head to Winnett
Montana, and Nathaniel’s commune, Ragnarok.

There,
in the mountains, they find Ragnarok, where tents and yurts are arranged on a
parcel of flat land called “The Triangle.”
At first, they find the inhabitants wary of them, even though the leader
of the commune, Rizzo, greets them with open arms.

The
filmmakers stay at the commune for three weeks, and worry that they are witnessing
a cult, not merely an alternate form of community. But as the days pass and the filmmakers get
to know the people, a bond forms between the documentary-makers and the
denizens of Ragnarok.

And
then something strange starts to occur. Some people at the commune begin to
exhibit signs of a strange sickness. And
worse, that sickness seems to be caused by the presence of something in a cave
nearby; a cave that the filmmakers have been forbidden from entering.

“The
things that make us comfortable sometimes make us too comfortable.”

The
Triangle derives
much of its energy from its method, or stylistic approach. It is a film of the cinema verite school, meaning that the
presence of the camera is always acknowledged -- sometimes in a confrontational way -- and that the lens captures life unfolding.

In
films of this type, sometimes called observational cinema, issues such as focus
aren’t always immediately addressed or corrected, and shots eschew the standards
of third-person cinema to suggest spontaneity. Sometimes, the editing adopts a
non-traditional approach because, typically, documentaries have more footage
than they can reasonably expect to include in a feature length effort. Thus,
split or multiple screens may be featured, as well as “B” rolls.

The
filmmakers behind The Triangle have exceptional eyes for detail. The opening driving scene (a staple of the
found footage format) is enlivened, for example, by the aforementioned
split-screens and fast-motion photography, before the action settles down in
Winnet, on Friday the 13th, 2012, no less.

That day is a bad omen, of course, if you
happen to be superstitious.

Once
in town, the filmmakers stop at a bar and see a T-shirt displayed there that
reads “Fuck Obama.” On the bar menu: Freedom Fries.

These
little details reveal a lot about the town -- and the state of the human race
-- and form the starting point for our mysterious journey. These images tell us
about the world we inhabit today, its vulgarity and pettiness. It is a world
that some people are very, very tired of contending with.

Once
at the Triangle, the film grows truly intriguing as the filmmakers document every
aspect of life in Ragnarok, from preparing meals to taking a shit.

A
series of “talking head” interviews are interspersed with shots of daily activity,
and they introduce the denizens of the Triangle. These folks don’t look like “real”
actors, and don’t present that way, either. Instead, they seem like real
people. There’s a character, for instance, who discusses “the cage of words,” and refutes the idea that Ragnarok is a cult…because
cults feature “a unified belief system.”

The
folks at Ragnarok, by contrast, have “no
answers for the unknown.” That line mirrors the movie’s approach. It also
offers no answers for the unknown.

The
film’s camera approach -- that adoption of cinema verite standards -- proves
immersive and intriguing, but the great quality about The Triangle is the way
that the camera observes little things which, at first blush, don’t seem
important, or go unnoticed. On the way to the commune for instance, Rizzo warns
the filmmakers that the cave in the distance is off-limits.

Later,
the camera watches as some people grow ill, inexplicably. At first, the water is suspected. It could be
contaminated. But not everyone who drank it has gotten sick. The more we learn, the more it seems
something more insidious seems to be at work.

And
then, at the end of the film, an unmanned camera filming the distant cave in
long shot captures an important event.
It is out-of-focus, blurry, and so we get a sense of it, but not the
details of it.

In
other words, The Triangle fosters a deep sense of ambiguity about its
central mystery, let alone what it means.
I don’t want to give away any pertinent details, but the film’s central
mystery may involve: a.) time travel, b.) predestination, c.) teleportation, or
d.) all of the above.

Consider:
the film concerns a group of people who strike off and leave modern
civilization. They form a community in the mountains and learn to live off the
grid, with no modern conveniences. We
see them as an offshoot, or byproduct of modernity. They have left behind the world of “Fuck Obama”
and “Freedom Fries.”

But
is it possible, given what happens in that cave in the denouement -- and what
is discovered there -- that their role in history is a far different one?

Are
they, in fact part of an inexplicable paradox, both the originators of mankind,
and the latest generation of the species?

The
great thing about The Triangle is that any such explanation is merely a “cage of
words,” and the film hints at a mystery greater than anything our minds can
conceive or understand.

It
offers no real answers.

But
that’s okay. I’d rather have clues that I can speculate about, and that’s exactly
what The
Triangle provides.

Go
in expecting no answers. That way you won't feel let down. And,
the film's finale is mind-blowing. The climax will stay with you the way that the end of Picnic at Hanging Rock does.

The Triangletakes us out of the world that makes us “too
comfortable,” one might conclude, and in our current Hollywood environment of film-making by committee, that's a great gift.

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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